The Creation Museum and the Creation/Evolution Battle

Just in case there was any doubt, let me declare that I endorse theories of evolution as articulated and studied (and revised and deepened) by mainstream science. I do not believe in a literal rendering of the Genesis narrative as the truth of the universe's origins. Nor do I see my convictions about evolution as in any way incompatible with my Christian faith. I join a host of other believers past and present in affirming my belief in a creating God alongside a belief in the Big Bang, a billions-of-years-old universe, the evolutionary development of life, etc.

Were I an anti-evolution creationist, though, I'd probably try to take my cues from the Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis. [True confessions: some of what follows appears in slightly altered form in some articles about the Museum I'm writing currently].

Departing from the attack rhetorics of the creation-evolution data wars (i.e., barrage of specialized and often misconstrued data vs. consensus of scientists), the Museum's main walkthrough tour beings with an irenic scene, a life-sized diorama of two scientists at work. Against a photorealistic backdrop of the Grand Canyon, two scientists (mannequins, of course) perch on a dusty outcropping of rock, brushing dust away from the partially exposed bones of a dinosaur. TV displays on the walls of the diorama room play looped videotape of the two scientists the mannequins represent, each amiably explaining his work.

"I'm an evolutionist," declares the younger one. "I interpret these bones as belonging to a dinosaur who lived millions of years ago."

"I'm a creationist," says the other. "I see these bones as only a few thousand years old, buried in the Great Flood described in Genesis."

Neither scientist shares his rationale or supporting evidence. Nor does either one of the scientists attack his colleague's interpretation. They simply come to divergent conclusions based on their (apparently equally rigorous/well-informed) study of the plain evidence before them.

There's more going on here than a simple scene of collegial disagreement. Theorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett argues that museums do more than merely show; they participate in the creation of knowledge in particular fields. A display of pre-Colombian Native American pots, for example, does more than merely show off some old kitchen implements. Behind that display are a number of predecessor actions, acts of selection (choosing this pot rather than that one from an archeological site), displacement (removing the pot from its original place buried in a cave), and re-situation (placing the pot in an exhibit, with a caption, alongside other such items). These acts collectively transform the pot from "just a pot" to an artifact, a stand-in for a whole culture, a whole history. Through "artifact-ing" objects, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett concludes, museums help to establish what "counts" as (in this case) pre-Colombian Native American culture.

Patterning itself after a mainstream science museum, the Creation Museum likewise creates an artifact in this first display. But the artifact in question isn't the half-buried fossil; it's the scientists. Or, more accurately, it's the sterilized snapshot of what it is to "do" science. Science, implies the display, is nothing more than looking carefully at evidence. By dis-placing the scientists from the context of real-world creation/evolution battles (really, in what context would two such scientists be working together?), by scrubbing the dig site scene clean of any hint of acrimony, legitimation challenges, or detailed rationales, the display presents both creationists and evolutionists equally as scientific.

Right at the beginning of the tour, then, the Creation Museum basically brackets off from consideration the whole data war over "who's more scientific?" that characterizes so much of the creation/evolution debates. What, then, if not legitimate science explains the difference between creationists and evolutionists? What, moreover, makes creationism preferable to evolution if not superior scientific support?

The Museum itself raises and answers those questions throughout the next section of the walkthrough, tellingly entitled "Same Evidence, Different Starting Points." Using a series of wall displays, the Museum strives to present an even-handed, comparison/contrast of evolutionary and creationist accounts of the origin of the universe and of life on earth (evolutionist, for the Museum, covers any scientific theory, biological or not, that posits a billions-of-years-old universe).

The wall displays replicate the pattern of the initial diarama: here's some observational data; here are two conflicting conclusions about that data. Again, the displays banish from consideration any detailed data, scientific theories, or rationales. The only real difference, it seems, between the evolutionary and creationist views concern their "starting point." The evolutionists, argue the displays, begin from a place called "human reason." The creationists start out from a place labeled "God's word."

Now, to an inerrantist--one who comes to the Museum already certain of the literal truth of the Genesis account--the side-by-side explanation presents a no-brainer of a decision: clearly only the Biblical account is true. Case closed. Yet the Museum does not itself immediately make this case. These displays remain decidedly neutral compared to the biased, straw-man presentations of evolutionary theory commonly found in anti-evolutionist literature. To be sure, the Museum's decision not to include the supporting data for non-creationist accounts of prehistory could itself be interpreted as a dishonest act; any mainstream scientist would argue that it is simply not the case that the two theories are coequal in terms of data-based support. But the Museum's choice to mask the data support (or lack thereof) in this section also keeps the museological focus on the starting points.

This focus proves vital as the walkway displays shift from comparing/contrasting views of pre-history to comparing and contrasting evolutionist and creationist views of human life in the present. Questions about how fossils form or how species emerge fade away, replaced by questions like "Why is there suffering?" or "How ought humans behave toward each other?" These latter inquiries are not scientific questions, to be sure. But that's the point: science, in the Museum's logic, is merely the looking at. The conclusions--evolutionary or creationist--are based on starting points, aka worldviews. Creationism and evolutionism are not themselves scientific doctrines to be proven or supported purely through data; they draw instead on essentially unprovable metaphysical presuppositions about what truth is and how humans gain knowledge. Accepting the Bible as literally true isn't a conclusion made on the basis of evidence and reasoning; it's the foundation that defines the nature of evidence and rationality. The interpretation of data (aka science) depends upon one's original worldview.

As worldviews, creationism and evolutionism are amenable to qualitative (rather than merely descriptive) evaluation. To the basic questions of present-day life--why do we live? why do we love? why do we suffer? why do we die?--evolution has no answers, or at best only the brutal, soulless rationale that we are all animals and that suffering/dying is the way of the world. Creationism, however, not only provides a comprehensive view of humanities origins (a view, imply the displays, that enjoys just as much material support as evolution); it also gives an answer to the nagging questions of human existence.

This, then, is the Museum's brilliance. It changes the nature of the creation/evolution debate. Rather than being a battle of data, a battle of science, the Museum re-casts the debate as a battle between worldviews. As a worldview, contends the Museum, evolution simply fails. Creationism wins, in the Museum's displays, not by out-evidencing the competition but by out-religioning it.

More tomorrow,

JF